I walked out of work recently on a dark and quiet Sunday night and realized something on Clinton Street was different: There was light coming through a big window on the top floor of the old Iron Mountain Record Storage Co., an industrial building that's been converted into loft apartments.

I looked up and saw a guy moving around in what must be his living room, and I could see a lamp and the flickering of his television screen. It was the first time in 17 years of working downtown that I had ever seen light coming from that window, and for that moment, at least, nothing on the street seemed quite the same.